Going barbless

After some minor surgery this guy was released back in the river

The amount of fish we catch at the river borders on the ridiculous. Sure you get the odd session when you're just scratching double digits but those are the exception rather than the rule. We started fishing plastics (tubes, crawfish, senko worms etc.) pretty heavily this year and saw our fish counts nearly double. The downside to fishing these baits versus spinners and crankbaits has been that the fish take in the bait deeper, resulting in more injuries to the fish. The smallie pictured took a tube pretty deep requiring some minor surgery with some side cutters to safely clip and remove the hook.  I started crimping the barbs on all my hooks a few sessions ago and it's definitely made the fishing more challenging. Yeah, you do lose a few more fish. triggering more than a few choice four letter words to be dropped on the river. But it does make you a better fisherman. The second you hook up you pay a whole lot more attention to line tension and the angle of the rod in relation to what the fish is doing. By nature, small mouth bass are super quick and don't need an excuse to launch 2-3'out of the water to try to shake a bait. Going barbless has added more challenge to the fishing and resulted in less injuries to the fish. Win win, right? Thanks for reading.